God Appears Again to Solomon

9 When Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build,^(A)

¹¹ Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house; all that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished.^(A)

God’s Second Appearance to Solomon

¹² Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.^{(B) 13} When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain or command the locust to devour the land or send pestilence among my people,^{(C) 14} if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.^{(D) 15} Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.^{(E) 16} For now I have chosen and consecrated this house so that my name may be there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.^{(F) 17} As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my ordinances,^{(G) 18} then I will establish your royal throne, as I made a covenant^[a] with your father David saying, ‘You shall never lack a successor to rule over Israel.’^(H)

¹⁹ “But if you^[b] turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you and go and serve other gods and worship them,^{(I) 20} then I will pluck you^[c] up from the land that I have given you,^[d] and this house, which I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.^{(J) 21} And regarding this house, now exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this house?’^{(K) 22} Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord the God of their ancestors who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods and worshiped them and served them; therefore he has brought all this calamity upon them.’ ”

Various Activities of Solomon

8 At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house,^{(L) 2} Solomon rebuilt the cities that Huram had given to him and settled the people of Israel in them.

³ Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and captured it. ⁴ He built Tadmor in the wilderness and all the storage towns that he built in Hamath. ⁵ He also built Upper Beth-horon and Lower Beth-horon, fortified cities, with walls, gates, and bars,^{(M) 6} and Baalath, as well as all Solomon’s storage towns, and all the towns for his chariots, the towns for his cavalry, and whatever Solomon desired to build, in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

¹⁹ as well as all of Solomon’s storage cities, the cities for his chariots, the cities for his cavalry, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.^(A)

⁹ Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire; this also is vanity and a chasing after wind.^(A)

¹⁰ Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure from all my toil, and this was my reward from all my toil.^(A)